When preparing a meal it is usual that the meal consists of a plurality of food items that are to be cooked simultaneously or partly simultaneously on different heat sources on a cooking device such as stove having a plurality of stove plates, gas burners, micro wave heaters etc. The heat sources might also be of the kind having an electric heating element in direct contact with a food item in a cooking pot.
Preparing a meal in this way traditionally requires a lot of manual work. For each food item cooked on a respective one of the heating sources, the heat supply has to be regulated which might include various periods of different heat supply rates at various time durations, and which are related to the amount of the food item. Often it is necessary to synchronize the cooking on each heating source to each other either in parallel to each other or sequentially, but in many cases both. The person cooking the meal thereby uses recipes having instructions for the cooking parameters or uses own knowledge or a combination of these. The recipes might be taken from books, magazines, electronic media or downloaded to a computer.
A traditional preparing of a meal therefore is very circumstantial, time consuming and to a large extent relies on the skill and experience of the person in question.